Sept. 12, 2011--Speaking at the
Heritage Foundation, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) announced he
is introducing legislation which would allow individuals to establish
voluntary personal social security savings accounts. McCotter
said
his Save Social Security Act would not require benefit cuts or tax
increases; rather it would "leverage spending reductions" achieved in
part by block granting some programs to the states and by eliminating
other programs (this aspect will be addressed in a companion
bill). McCotter said
the personal accounts would give individuals a proprietary stake in the
system. The plan would include a benefit guarantee. Citing
Peter Ferrara, who helped develop the proposal, McCotter said it would
amount to "the greatest reduction of government
spending and debt in human history." McCotter said he hopes his
proposal will "help unite the generations." "We want to avoid
generational warfare," he said. McCotter said his proposal is not
privatization and he opposes privatization, but skeptics say it is
similar to the effort in 2005 to introduce private accounts. [releases/statements]

Asked where he stood on the current back and
forth on Social Security between Gov. Rick Perry and former Gov.
Mitt Romney, McCotter said that everyone knows the solvency of the
system must be addressed and he hoped his proposal might serve as "a
bridge between those two" (and might possibly be injected into
tonight's
debate in Tampa from which he has been excluded).

McCotter developed his proposal with Peter Ferrara, who also
spoke. Ferrara, who helped McCotter develop this proposal, is
senior policy advisor for the Institute for
Policy Innovation, director of the International
Center for Law and Economics and president of the Virginia Club for
Growth, and has worked on and written about Social Security reform
since
the early 1980s. Ferrara argues that the problem with the current
system is "there is no savings and investment anywhere in the
system...it's all redistribution."